A few Qs regarding GameEx on a Win98SE system

[Mangledmon]

Hi guys,

I've just installed version 7.05 of GameEx onto my dedicated GameEx PC (finally - I've been planning to do it for ages and have finally done it!), but I'm coming across two probs. First I'll list my specs, and then detail what's happening:

AMD Athlon 1.2ghz CPU

512mb PC-133 SD RAM

nVidia FX5500 128mb video card (latest Win98SE drivers, + I've tested older drivers as recommended)

Keyboard/mouse, 2x USB Playstation 2 controller adaptors (for emu's)

OS: Windows 98SE

Probs-

- When GameEx starts up, it plays the opening movie, but then goes to a black screen and won't load the menu until I click a mouse button. This happened on an earlier version of GameEx v7, so I updated to the 7.05, and no change. It runs everything nice and smooth now I've changed some of the display options, but yeah, it won't load the GUI unless I click a mouse button. Should I change the opening movie from a WMV into DivX/Xvid or an MPEG if that's causing the issue? On my WinXP system which I used as a test bed, I didn't have this problem.

- When I load up MAME and get it to update the game list, it starts indexing, but it hangs. I left it for 30mins yesterday, and when I went back to it, there was a blank screen and no disk activity. I've noticed that the bottom-half of the screen that tells you what GameEx is doing/indexing/etc for MAME stuff isn't there - there's just a blank sectionn of screen in black. Any ideas for getting it to behave?

- I'm using MAME .083 as its the only version I have the full ROM set for. I notice that I can get some of the game listing options to work correctly (multiplayer/all/4-player games), but things like Neo Geo and CPS games won't list accordingly. Is there a special file I need to get it to index these correctly? I had the same prob on my WinXP system for this as well.

Thanks again guys - I reeally appreciate the help!!

-Mangledmon-

[Ruby-Rube]

I would upgrade to MAME 0.11 and GameEx 7.08 first. Youâ??ll need to upgrade your rom set as well. There are plenty of ways to do that. Email me if you need to be pointed in the right direction.

For the startup problem, try changing the theme, certain themes will not load up properly with certain video / hardware combinations.

The indexing could take a very long time, even longer then you waited. Also, if you have Symantec Anti-Virus software the screen might goes dark for a while. Try disabling all other unnecessary processes running, and waiting a little longer.

Good luck,

Reuben

Hi guys,

I've just installed version 7.05 of GameEx onto my dedicated GameEx PC (finally - I've been planning to do it for ages and have finally done it!), but I'm coming across two probs. First I'll list my specs, and then detail what's happening:

AMD Athlon 1.2ghz CPU

512mb PC-133 SD RAM

nVidia FX5500 128mb video card (latest Win98SE drivers, + I've tested older drivers as recommended)

Keyboard/mouse, 2x USB Playstation 2 controller adaptors (for emu's)

OS: Windows 98SE

Probs-

- When GameEx starts up, it plays the opening movie, but then goes to a black screen and won't load the menu until I click a mouse button. This happened on an earlier version of GameEx v7, so I updated to the 7.05, and no change. It runs everything nice and smooth now I've changed some of the display options, but yeah, it won't load the GUI unless I click a mouse button. Should I change the opening movie from a WMV into DivX/Xvid or an MPEG if that's causing the issue? On my WinXP system which I used as a test bed, I didn't have this problem.

- When I load up MAME and get it to update the game list, it starts indexing, but it hangs. I left it for 30mins yesterday, and when I went back to it, there was a blank screen and no disk activity. I've noticed that the bottom-half of the screen that tells you what GameEx is doing/indexing/etc for MAME stuff isn't there - there's just a blank sectionn of screen in black. Any ideas for getting it to behave?

- I'm using MAME .083 as its the only version I have the full ROM set for. I notice that I can get some of the game listing options to work correctly (multiplayer/all/4-player games), but things like Neo Geo and CPS games won't list accordingly. Is there a special file I need to get it to index these correctly? I had the same prob on my WinXP system for this as well.

Thanks again guys - I reeally appreciate the help!!

-Mangledmon-

[Mangledmon]

Ruby - thanks for that! It looks like the hanging issue was to do with my theme and the fact that my PC went into standby!!! All fixed now and MAME is working a treat. Same for the C64, but I'm having issues with my other emulators, if anyone could help-

- Gens won't load up properly - it either has a fault, or loads in a window Should I grab Fusion instead and try that?

- Most emulators won't quit back to GameEx when I hit escape, except for MAME. zSNES and Nestopia, for example, go into their File/&tc menu bars, and Stella isn't interested in doing anything.

- Finally, ePSXe doesn't like returning to GameEx after playing a game when pressing the escape key - it exits the emulator, but GameEx won't come up afterwards.

The weird thing is that I didn't have any of these issues when I'd set up my test on my WinXP machine - I could get everything to exit by pressing the escape button and didn't get the probs I'm having here. Am I doing something wrong, or is it a Win98SE thing? Any help would be appreciated!!

-Mangledmonn-

[Ruby-Rube]

GREAT!

Sorry I can't make any suggestions about the other emulators. I only use MAME and Daphne.

Reuben

Ruby - thanks for that! It looks like the hanging issue was to do with my theme and the fact that my PC went into standby!!! All fixed now and MAME is working a treat. Same for the C64, but I'm having issues with my other emulators, if anyone could help-

- Gens won't load up properly - it either has a fault, or loads in a window Should I grab Fusion instead and try that?

- Most emulators won't quit back to GameEx when I hit escape, except for MAME. zSNES and Nestopia, for example, go into their File/&tc menu bars, and Stella isn't interested in doing anything.

- Finally, ePSXe doesn't like returning to GameEx after playing a game when pressing the escape key - it exits the emulator, but GameEx won't come up afterwards.

The weird thing is that I didn't have any of these issues when I'd set up my test on my WinXP machine - I could get everything to exit by pressing the escape button and didn't get the probs I'm having here. Am I doing something wrong, or is it a Win98SE thing? Any help would be appreciated!!

-Mangledmonn-

[Tom Speirs]

Ruby - thanks for that! It looks like the hanging issue was to do with my theme and the fact that my PC went into standby!!! All fixed now and MAME is working a treat. Same for the C64, but I'm having issues with my other emulators, if anyone could help-

- Gens won't load up properly - it either has a fault, or loads in a window Should I grab Fusion instead and try that?

- Most emulators won't quit back to GameEx when I hit escape, except for MAME. zSNES and Nestopia, for example, go into their File/&tc menu bars, and Stella isn't interested in doing anything.

- Finally, ePSXe doesn't like returning to GameEx after playing a game when pressing the escape key - it exits the emulator, but GameEx won't come up afterwards.

The weird thing is that I didn't have any of these issues when I'd set up my test on my WinXP machine - I could get everything to exit by pressing the escape button and didn't get the probs I'm having here. Am I doing something wrong, or is it a Win98SE thing? Any help would be appreciated!!

-Mangledmonn-

Hi There, I'm not too sure about your emulator issues, as I don't run any of those, the main thing to check is you have the map keys setting on so gameex can catch the escape key.

However the reason for writing, I'm really interested to hear how GameEx generally runs on your machine as its obviously a little low end and I was really curious how the performance was etc. I always like to know stuff like that.

Thanks.

Tom

[Mangledmon]

Hi Tom!

For your interest, it runs really well on my machine, better than I thought it would!! I have a few options turned off, but it runs pretty well overall.

My only issue is that I have it hooked up to my TV so my default theme I built runs at 800 x 600, and is probably a little too high for viewing it via S-Video; I'm going to experiment with a 640 x 480 theme to see how it goes.

As for the emulator situation, I've gone through and can get every emulator to work now, but hitting escape still isn't working, and all the games have map keys set to on. Go fig Until I find out otherwise, I've got icons on my desktop and will use GameEx for watching movies and playing MAME

Cheers!

-Mangaman-